Year One of Naley By Nature
I quit my job of five years in October 2021. But the conversation about quitting my job started MONTHS before that. It’s not just that I needed convincing…
I quit my job of five years in October 2021. But the conversation about quitting my job started MONTHS before that. It’s not just that I needed convincing, I acknowledged that my time at my current position had reached its natural conclusion, I yearned for something more aligned to my purpose. I felt it in my bones that I needed to take the leap, but now years removed from that moment, I see that there were many risks that I was well aware of, and there were even more that I did not even consider. Those lessons shaped the past few years of my life. The first year of trying to establish ourselves, not based on a proven playbook, not based on what will keep us just out of survival mode, but one that we had to walk alone, and that path was nonexistent. Our steps forward paved the way. I am still in the process of dealing with many of these lessons. Indeed, it is that intensive of a journey...
Accountability is essential, I always thought of myself as someone that took accountability. But that belief was tested to the MAX once I joined Naley to produce videos for Naley By Nature. I realized how much I outsourced accountability to external factors to accomplish my tasks, to validate my output and to proceed forward. Because once there is someone or something that I could tether my responsibilities to, I was motivated. It was conditioned into me. In school, specifically with assignments I was not particularly interested in, I would rely on maintaining my academic record to produce excellent work. Standardized testing, competitive environments, and the dangling of my future kept me properly driven. Upon further reflection, I also see how shame kept me in a constant state of surveillance of my mind, my choices and my behavior. You don’t do that for years, without experiencing some real blowback once all those external stakes dissolve. The work that I chose by joining Naley By Nature, was rooted in intrinsic values, values that I determined would bring me closer to the person I wish to be. But I soon learned that I must intentionally build structures to externalize the motivation. Upon returning from Palestine after a 3-month journey, we had collected hours of interviews, that we would need to produce and publish for the Youtube channel. In the beginning, I used the upswing of energy from our time there to make the videos, but after a few weeks, a problem arose... actually several.
I felt really unsure about how I wanted the audience to come away from watching the videos. I was dissatisfied with my editing skills, and on top of that, the videos we were spending so much time producing, were getting little to no reception. I kept fixating on my shortcomings, and it was getting in the way of taking ownership of the stories we had documented. I would set deadlines and repeatedly fail to meet them. It was frustrating trying to use a system of pressure and outsourced accountability to complete projects that deeply required my creative direction.
Thankfully, we were able to publish all of our videos from Palestine. The problems that surfaced, I took note of, but I still had a ways to go when analyzing challenges as useful information for me to get better. I failed to take into account the emotional toll, the importance of my own presence behind the camera.
When faced with a challenge, I could not easily resolve, I believed it meant I couldn’t overcome this challenge. Thus, I took those moments as a personal failing. The objective and rational approach I would take to address problems at my 9 to 5 job, granted me composure and clear vision. I struggled in this area when it came to the work of documenting real stories that were at times, emotionally heavy. Sharing your story with the world is such an intimate experience and it requires a delicate touch on our part. When editing these videos months later, I would notice my discomfort at the vulnerability. This was the part of me that was scared to see myself struggle through hard times, through obstacles that don’t have clear-cut solutions. In the last few years, I sat with the discomfort, and gradually, it has helped me reframe my sensitivity as a genuine desire to connect with people on a deeper level.
This leads me to a lesson that I am still in the process of learning: creative collaboration. Naley and I have been best of friends our entire lives. She is probably my closest, most cherished confidant. Our relationship experienced its fair share of turbulence as we grew into a partnership. What became evident is that where our friendship felt natural and easy, working together would require more effort and coordination. Which can only be established by how well we are able to communicate. And in our first year, there was a lot of resistance in our exploratory phase. From my side, most of the friction stemmed from my own self-doubts. I need a lot of space to truly understand myself, but I would not always communicate my needs and expectations. I didn’t know how. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure what I really needed or wanted. I felt awkward and frustrated, when I couldn’t contribute in a meaningful way, and the pressure to perform started to build inside me.
When we arrived in Nablus, we vowed to stay open to what the experience has in store for us. We knew we would interview people for our “What are you wearing?” series, but we also wanted to conduct one-on-one interviews. It was agreed upon that Naley would conduct the interviews, and I would man the camera and audio. I felt that if I could just do my role as the camera person, it would be enough. But that was really masking feelings I didn’t know how to express. Our time in Palestine was incredible, one for the ages. It was raw and intense and I was forced to confront if I really had what it takes to do this. I knew that significant change was needed, but at that moment, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, so I concentrated on just being present.
The reason I say that this lesson is still unfolding is not to skirt around my role. Since Palestine, Naley and I have traveled to India, Vietnam and Iran. We have written together. We have also done our own thing. Our dynamic continues to evolve. One thing that we have working in our favor is trust. I think without it, navigating this aspect of our partnership would have been near impossible. What I have learned is that developing my communication intentionally and more honestly is helping me redefine my role.
As much as the past five years have triggered my internal system, it has just as much called out my relationship to the physical world, to resources. Committing to this project was a financial investment, we would have to support ourselves by establishing our value through our work. My relationship with money has taught me that money moves the same way energy does. It flows. It magnetizes. It activates potential energy and responds to vibe coherence. And what that meant for me was projecting my worth outwards and more specifically how much I really valued the work I was doing. I discovered I was engaging with having enough resources from a lack mindset.
If I played small, I’d win small prizes. My fear of being seen diminished my presence and value cannot be gauged from this space. My thoughts were perpetuating the same beliefs I saw as confirmation of my smallness. As a creative that is committed to shifting the spotlight to the historically marginalized and oppressed, how could I possibly shine a light on their experiences, when I am dimming my own? I saw how much I needed to expand to truly hold space for what I could become, and that included recognizing the value of what I am right now.
In the beginning, anything you do feels alien, but you forget that what feels natural as breathing now, once required your full attention. How your hands trembled in the beginning, steadied with time and consistency.
Five years later, I can honestly say that my hands have started to stabilize.
Year one of Naley By Nature tested me unlike anything ever before. That first year laid the foundation for me to step into my highest potential. Those initial experiences challenged me to emerge, to trust myself, but at the same time, pushed me to transcend my mind, and find resonance that can only come from listening to my heart. I believe my trajectory as a creator was decided in that first year with Naley By Nature, and I am grateful for how it has shaped me.
The Heart of Naley by Nature
Born out of friendship, synchronicity, and a refusal to accept the silences of mainstream media, Naley by Nature began as a conversation and grew into a movement. From quitting corporate jobs to documenting Palestinian voices under occupation, Naley and Sadia’s vision has always been to uncover the truths deliberately hidden — and to tell the stories the world most needs to hear.
The vision was born like most great ideas: a gradual interplay of realizations, scattered thoughts and emotional waves aligning to what was happening behind global headlines. The people that are reduced to facts and figures, whose fates were explained as inevitable.
In the midst of spiritual upheaval, conversations between Naley and Sadia began to uncover a deeper intensity, an energetic shift they were feeling from their our own personal experiences. There were moments when the patterns and synchronicities felt overwhelming. They realized how much was deliberately hidden from them, about the world, about power, about themselves. They were determined to see the story for what it really was. So, they decided to tell it to themselves.
This was their friendship. It didn’t transcend time, nor was it a chance encounter. No, Naley and Sadia’s was a connection that endured through the many phases of their lives - and the weight of THAT history birthed Naley By Nature.
Naley By Nature was launched right in the beginning of 2021 as a YouTube channel. In the phone call the two had before they launched the channel, Naley and Sadia went back and forth, brainstorming names. This was the texts sent between the two of them immediately after that call:
Strangely enough, Naley By Nature came to Naley in a eureka moment — a spark that lit up her spirit one day. But it wasn’t random. They had been slowly piecing together the larger story, building a narrative framework to see the world better, to see themselves more clearer.
Naley and Sadia were unknowingly piecing together their storytelling process through their relationship.
Flashes in the pan are just that; POOF! Then they vanish just as fast, never accounting for what came before and how it transmutes the present moment into something that makes the future worth living for.
The pair like to think of Naley By Nature as one ongoing conversation reflecting back to each of our deeply personal evolutions.
In the beginning, Naley planted the seeds of her vision.
For months, she watered it on her own; she tended to it as if it were a garden of story ideas yearning to take root and soar. Later, Naley invited Sadia to put her roots in alongside hers. They were already extensively discussing what had been done, but now Naley was asking Sadia, “Well, what will you do?”
“Well, what will you do?”
This was the dynamic of their relationship: Naley pushed the movement forward, while Sadia zoomed out at ground level. This very piece is what made them believe so deeply in themselves, in their vision.
When the Sheikh Jarrah protests found their way into our timelines, at the same time George Floyd’s murder led to mass global protests against police brutality and institutional racism, the writing was on the wall. Who are we really entrusting to tell our stories?
“Who are we really trusting to tell our stories?”
The future of humanity felt like it was hurled in the air like a gauntlet. The shroud of illusions was slipping in a world that did not know what it was headed towards. That should have been more terrifying to the pair, but strangely, it felt like the time was theirs for the taking.
In an act of courage, Naley and Sadia both quit their corporate jobs and got serious about documenting the stories buried in the Western news headlines. They truly believed that they could catalyze a global cultural movement if they could just share the stories that pans the spotlight to people that have been pushed into the margins of society, hidden from our realm of awareness.
With this reason in mind, they hit the road with camera in tow.
First Stop: Palestine
When the Western world was heavily censoring Palestinian humanity in the news and online, Naley and Sadia started documenting interviews with an array of remarkable people living in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Palestinian people under occupation were not left behind; they were strategically shunned from Western media, literature, and advocacy. The West’s silence existed like a collective unconscious waiting to unload. The truth always existed in what was not said, who was not accounted for, and where we couldn't go.
Palestinians and so many other groups of people across the world have been systematically dehumanized with words and images for decades. Naley and Sadia clearly saw its antidote, but the road was not easy. Once you call out the truth for what it really is, you can’t go back, not in good conscience, that is.
One major lesson Naley and Sadia learned on their journey was that humanity has grown to fear the truth because it forces us to confront the other side of heightened awareness: the uncertainty of change. For so long, the map of possibilities has been drawn by the same systems that benefit from our lack of imagination. It makes us feel powerless, alone and abandoned, when we are anything but.
Naley By Nature has always felt like our North Star, and at times, just out of reach. But, that’s okay, because since the two started this journey together, they have come across countless people who have been fighting insurmountable odds every single day.
Naley By Nature is a mirror for the world to contemplate on, but also a distillation of the women Naley and I are becoming in the process. It’s chaotic and raw, and sometimes gets a little messy, but we don’t shy away from that.
